Zugzwang
by Denise Felt
Summary: A downed UFO brings the past crashing back into Cmdr. Straker's life.


**Zugzwang **

**(A UFO Story)**

by Denise Felt 2011

_A Sci-Fi Forever Forum Challenge Story_

**Chapter 1**

"I'm closing in on the coordinates now, Commander, and should have visual contact in just a few minutes."

Straker leaned into the mike at the communications station in HQ and said tersely, "Keep a sharp eye out, Paul. Just because it crash-landed doesn't mean that they're incapacitated. Where's your backup?"

Col. Foster glanced to his left, then to his right, giving a short nod to each of the men flanking his position. "Right here, sir. They're staying close."

"Good." The commander wanted badly to pace, restlessly aware of the danger in allowing the colonel to reconnoiter on foot. But the woods were simply too dense for the mobiles to maneuver any closer to the fix they had on the UFO's position. Someone had to venture into the underbrush, and Foster being Foster, there had been no doubt at all who would lead the way. But Straker had several years of training invested in the cocky colonel, and he had no desire to lose him now. Instead of pacing, however, he tightened his grip on the mike and said, "How's visibility?"

"About forty percent. The trees are dense, but they're mostly young, and none of their boles are very wide. We'll know pretty quickly when we reach the crash site. There's bound to be a lot of damage to the underbrush."

After several tense minutes, he radioed again. "Commander, we've found it!"

"Condition?"

Paul moved closer to the downed UFO, skirting some small trees, trying to see the damage. "It's still intact – somewhat. It took out some trees on the way down, so it's pretty much crushed on the side it landed on. But the rest looks alright. The good news is that it's not glowing or making that whine that signals a self-destruct."

"Any sign of – ?"

"Commander!" The colonel interrupted excitedly. "I can see the hatch! It looks damaged, but it's partially open. Permission to go inside, sir?"

Back at HQ, Straker's eyes met Lt. Ford's at the communications station for a moment as he weighed their options. It was vital that they learn more about this race that seemed determined to wipe them out. And if they could actually salvage some of their equipment, R & D would be ecstatic! But the commander was well aware that they would get very little warning if the ship self-destructed, and he didn't want to lose any men in this situation.

"Paul, any sign of the aliens outside the ship?" he asked, stalling for time.

"None here, sir. I'll check with my team." After a moment, the colonel replied, "All clear, Commander. No movement at all."

Straker sighed. That either meant that the aliens were hiding in ambush in the underbrush until the men went inside or else that they were still inside the ship; possibly injured, but still deadly adversaries. He wished he was there with them at this moment. It was ten times harder to gauge the situation when he wasn't onsite.

"Commander?" Foster radioed when Straker didn't immediately give him an answer.

"Curb your enthusiasm, Colonel," the commander said tersely. "Station a perimeter around the ship. Eight men twenty meters out. And I want no holes – got it?"

"Yes, sir," Paul replied, motioning his men to take position. Moments later, he radioed, "They're in place."

"Alright. One man goes in. Only one. Another waits at the hatch, ready to back him up if necessary. I want constant radio contact with the man inside and a running stream of commentary on everything he sees."

"Right." The colonel motioned for Lt. Bradley to follow him to the hatch. Mark nodded and moved in, watching their backs as they approached the ship. Paul had to work to keep his breathing normal. For years, they'd wanted a peek inside the alien ships. Now they were finally getting their chance, and he was thrilled that he got to be the first one to glimpse their technology. He knew Straker was counting on him to document everything, just in case they weren't able to save the ship, and he needed to keep his excitement out of his voice.

At the hatch, he paused and nodded to Mark to stand by. "Okay, Commander. I'm at the hatch and going in," he radioed, then took a deep breath and climbed through the broken doorway into the ship.

Although the outside of the ship on this side was intact, the interior was a shambles. Paul was forced to move debris from his path at every step, all the while watching for any aliens who might be aboard and conscious. He obediently kept up a verbal record of his movements for the commander, but he was somewhat discouraged to find so much of the alien ship's contents mangled and useless scraps of metal.

"Sorry, Commander," he radioed after a while. "I don't think we're going to be able to use any of this. It's a mess."

Straker was more concerned that he hadn't found any bodies among the wreckage. "Listen, Paul. Keep your team alert. If the aliens aren't aboard, then they're somewhere in those woods. It's doubtful that they'd venture far from the ship without first destroying it, so tell your men to stay on their toes."

The colonel relayed the message to his team, then prepared to leave the ship. But as he turned to go back through the debris the way he'd come, he heard something. "Commander?"

"What is it, Paul?"

"I think one of the aliens is still aboard."

"Do you see him?" the commander asked urgently.

"No, sir. I think he's buried under this pile of wreckage. I'm going to see if I can't dislodge some of it and locate him."

Straker bit back his instinctive response, knowing that Foster was already aware of how careful he needed to be in this situation. Instead he said, "Alright, Paul. Take it slow."

"Right." The colonel grunted a bit moving the larger pieces of debris, but was soon rewarded for his struggles by the glimpse of a red spacesuit at the bottom of the pile. "Sir! I've found him. He's pinned by the weight of this wreckage, and I can't be certain that he's even conscious. I'll know more in a minute."

Back at HQ, the commander gave in to the need to move and paced the floor in front of the communications station, listening intently to the sounds of the colonel over the mike as he worked moving aside the debris. Suddenly he stopped pacing as a sound came through the microphone that was far too familiar.

Foster heard it too and cursed, but he did not stop shifting the debris.

"Get out of there, Paul!" Straker demanded into the mike as the high-pitched whining that signaled the ship's imminent self-destruction grew louder.

"Can't!" the colonel panted, frantically shoving wreckage out of the way. "I've almost got him."

"Damn it, Paul! Move!"

"On it!" the colonel said breathlessly into the radio mike as the last of the debris gave way, and he was able to grab the injured alien. He threw him over his shoulder and ran for the hatch, yelling at his team to get to a safe distance. But Mark ignored that order and waited for him, helping him get the alien through the broken doorway. Then Paul slung him over his shoulder once more, and the two SHADO operatives ran for all they were worth toward the safety of the surrounding trees.

The blast lifted Foster off his feet and threw him and his burden into the underbrush, momentarily stunning the colonel while debris hailed down over them. But he recovered quickly and moved off the alien, shouting into his radio for his team to report their status. As his men answered his call, his heart settled into a more normal rhythm, and he turned his attention to the alien he had saved. There was blood on the spacesuit, mingled with the green oxygenated liquid the aliens used to breathe in space, so it was a good bet that the alien had sustained some serious injuries when he'd been pinned in the wreckage. But the biggest worry was that his helmet's faceplate had cracked from the fall into the underbrush and was quickly losing its liquid through the ever-widening cracks.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" the colonel said, unaware that his commanding officer could hear him over the radio. He made a quick decision and broke the seal of the helmet, knowing that the injured alien might not survive the violent shift from breathing liquid to breathing air, but certain that if he did nothing, the alien would definitely die almost immediately of asphyxiation as his liquid oxygen ran out.

Lt. Bradley was at his side, ordering team members to get a gurney, but Foster heard none of it. He turned the retching alien over so that he could breathe easier, his entire focus on what he was doing. Mark's gasp of astonishment didn't even penetrate the colonel's mind for several seconds, until after the alien began to breathe air painfully and was laid back onto the ground. Then Paul was finally able to process what Bradley had already seen, and he caught his breath.

"Commander?" he said shakily into the radio.

"What is it, Paul?" Straker said, dreading to hear that after all their risk and effort, the alien had died.

"Sir," Foster said, staring in awe at the green-tinted face that lay so close. "It's a woman!"

**Chapter 2**

When Straker entered the observation room, Col. Foster was at the window observing the surgery going on in the operating theatre below.

"Sir," he said with a short nod as he noticed the commander, then he turned back to the window.

Straker came over to his side and silently watched the doctors working to save the alien's life. After several minutes, he said quietly, "You did well, Paul."

"None of it will matter at all if she dies now," replied the colonel sadly.

"On the contrary, we've already learned a lot because of your efforts."

After a long pause, Foster said, "You mean, because we found a woman instead of a man?"

The commander nodded. "There had to be a reason for it, Paul. We've never found a female alien before. Something triggered it. Something – some change in their situation – brought her here, and we need to know what that was."

Paul looked at him in surprise. "You think she might be a defector?"

Straker focused on the woman below in the surgery, her greenly-tinted body mostly shielded from them as the doctors tried to keep her alive. "I don't know. And truthfully, we may never know." He met the colonel's eyes for a moment, and Foster caught a glimpse of his humanity before it was veiled as his expression hardened. "Considering the kind of people we're up against, Paul, she could simply be a new tactic to be used against us. Another way for them to try to break through our guard."

The colonel swallowed, shaking his head in response to such a scenario. "She opened her eyes, Commander."

"What?"

Paul turned to him, trying to explain what he felt in terms that would make sense. "Just as the team brought the gurney to the crash site, she opened her eyes and looked at me. And I could swear she understood what had happened, because . . ." He paused for a moment, then hurried on. "Because her expression was one of gratitude."

Straker sighed, hearing not just the colonel's words, but the nuances in his voice as well. And how could he tell a knight in shining armor that sometimes the damsel in distress he had rescued was really the dragon in disguise? He wouldn't want to hear it, and most likely wouldn't believe it no matter what the evidence. The commander could sympathize. He could still remember when he'd been young enough to still believe in slaying the dragon for the damsel. Time had destroyed his illusions soon enough, and no doubt it would for Foster someday too. But in the meantime, they had an alien on their hands that might end up being more dangerous if she lived than if she died on that operating table. Especially since human men tended to have a residue of chivalry running through their veins no matter what life had put them through. It wasn't a scenario they'd ever had to consider before, and if she truly was a trap sent to trip them up, the commander had to admire their strategy.

Even though he had no idea how to effectively counter it.

As he watched the doctors working so diligently in the theatre below, his expression grew hard once more with determination. He said brusquely, "Have you debriefed your team?"

Paul turned to him in surprise. "No. Not yet." In truth, he hadn't want to leave her side to take care of it.

The commander nodded without looking at him. "Do it. I want your report on my desk first thing in the morning."

The colonel sighed. "Yes, sir," he said as he glanced one last time at the surgery taking place. Then he headed out of the room and back to work.

Straker watched him go, then turned back to the window with a sigh of his own. He honestly didn't know what he hoped for more in this situation: that she lived? Or that she died.

It was well into the night before Dr. Jackson met with him in the doctor's hospital office. While he waited, Straker had tried to come up with a reason why a female alien might have braved the dangerous voyage across space to come here. They knew she'd traveled alone, since no trace of any other alien had been found in the area. Or even in the debris left after the ship's explosion. But for once, his normal quickness for discerning their plots within plots had deserted him, and he couldn't figure out what they were up to. But he had managed to reduce the situation to two possible schemes. It was either a brilliantly designed plan to infiltrate and destroy SHADO, or it was a last-bid effort to get SHADO to allow the aliens refuge on Earth. Neither scenario was pleasant to consider. Both had repercussions that could be felt globally for years to come.

And in the end, they might not ever find out which scheme was the one the aliens had planned. The alien woman had survived the surgery, but was in a deep coma. And the doctors merely looked grim when he asked how soon she might come out of it, which told its own tale. By the time Jackson entered his office, the commander was feeling pretty grim himself – although part of that might have been weariness as well. He'd had a full day at the studio yesterday, then been up all night with the alert. He'd ended up staying on after the morning shift change to handle the mobile reconnaissance. Needless to say, he hadn't felt like going home to sleep after Foster had radioed his astonishing news, so it was now some time since he'd been off his feet. Indeed, his body seriously wanted to relax into slumber sitting in the doctor's uncomfortable visitor's chair. But his restless mind wouldn't let him sleep. There were still too many unanswered questions to consider.

When Dr. Jackson entered the office, he seemed unsurprised to find the commander waiting for him. Straker had to assume that one of the nurses had warned him that he had a visitor. Or perhaps, Jackson just knew him too well to doubt that he'd come.

"What can you tell me, Jackson?" the commander asked once the doctor handed him a styrofoam cup of coffee from his dispenser and turned back to get one for himself.

Dr. Jackson took a sip from his cup before seating himself behind the desk. Then he gave the commander a sharp glance out of eyes that were red-rimmed with weariness. "There isn't much to tell just yet, Commander. She survived the surgery, but she's still in pretty bad shape. We were able to repair the damage to her spleen, as well as to her left kidney. But the head injury is another matter, and we have no way of knowing how serious it is. The fact that she is still in a coma may be an indicator, but it may also be attributed to her body's need to rest and heal. So we're trying not to assume too much at the moment."

"I see." The commander was grateful for the coffee's rejuvenating effects. He hadn't realized how sluggish his brain had become until it kicked back into high gear with the caffeine intake. "Does she differ in any way from the other aliens we've studied? Other than in the obvious way, of course."

"Ah! Yes, I understand." The doctor ruminated for a moment, then said, "Well, she is intact physically, which is a difference. We've found no evidence of prior surgeries that would indicate transplants of any kind. But that isn't really conclusive in and of itself. They may treat their females differently than they do their males."

"Yes, I'd wondered about that. The mere fact that we've never seen a female alien before suggests that they place some importance on them by not allowing them into combat. It's the one thing that has always given me hope that some shred of humanity remains in their thoughts."

"Unless there are simply too few of them to spare for battle," said the doctor.

"There is that," agreed the commander. "What about her reproductive organs? Anything you can conclude from them?"

Jackson frowned, showing puzzlement. "She has never borne a child, if that's what you're asking, Commander. And since her bone structure suggests a woman in her late thirties, this is very strange in a civilization bordering on the edge of extinction."

"Unless the men are sterile."

"Ah!" The doctor nodded as he considered this possibility. "Yes, yes. That could definitely account for it. Well, Commander. All this is conjecture at the moment. We may find out more when she wakes."

"You mean, _if_ she wakes," Straker corrected grimly. "And _if_ we can understand whatever she tries to tell us."

The doctor smiled tiredly as the commander rose to leave. "Yes, Commander. That is what I meant."

At the door, Straker turned. "May I see her?"

"Of course." Jackson stood up and came around his desk. "I'll take you down to her room."

He led the way down the corridor and around a corner into the secure section. He stopped at a door that was guarded by a sturdy Security operative and said, "Dr. Jackson and Commander Straker to see the patient."

"Yes, sir," said the operative, noting their names on his log. Then he opened the locked door and let them enter the room.

The hospital room was dimly lit to accommodate for the late hour, but a small lamp was still burning at the head of the bed. Straker felt a twitch as he saw the numerous machines surrounding the bed, their monitors proving that the silent patient still lived. He'd been hooked up to a few of these himself a time or two, and the mere sight of them made him remember. He ruthlessly closed those unbidden memories off and walked closer to the bed.

In the dim light, the green tint of her skin wasn't as obvious, and he could clearly see the fine bone structure that marked a face of true beauty. But his gasp wasn't because of that. He grabbed onto the side rail of the bed as his knees went weak, and he blinked back the instinctive tears that threatened. He had to see her clearly. He had to be _sure_.

"Commander?"

Jackson had obviously noticed his reaction. Indeed, he hadn't had enough warning to even brace for it, so it must have been quite apparent. He took a steadying breath, stiffening his spine and trying to swallow the lump in his throat enough to answer.

"Jackson, you might want to run her fingerprints," he said finally.

The doctor blinked in shock. "Oh?" he said, looking closely at the commander's white face.

Straker nodded, then turned to leave the room. At the door, he stopped with his hand on the knob. "Start with the USAF database," he said quietly, then left the room, closing the door behind him.

**Chapter 3**

Alec found him oddly quiet the next morning. Instead of talking the colonel's ear off with theories about this latest development, the commander was uncharacteristically silent, reading and signing reports as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. In fact, the only sign that Alec could see that he was even aware of the world around him was whenever the phone on his desk rang. Then the commander leapt into action, snatching the receiver up almost before the first ring had finished.

Col. Freeman noted these things without comment, sipping his bourbon in his favorite chair in front of Straker's HQ desk and waiting him out. Although he was fairly sure that whatever the commander was thinking wasn't pleasant, since his old friend looked like he hadn't slept in days. His shuttered eyes were sunk into the dark circles under them, and his lips were thinned with trying to hold back some strong emotion. Alec tried not to be too worried about it. Ed was always unfailingly optimistic about things. Nothing that had been thrown at him over the years had been able to knock him off-stride for long. Alec had always admired that quality in his friend, even though he had never been quite able to understand it. But he knew quite well that Earth had that staunch quality to thank for the fact that it still remained a free planet.

When Straker got up to refill his coffee, Alec almost spoke. But the phone rang just then, and the commander quickly slammed his cup down on the desk and answered it.

"Straker."

Over the line, Col. Freeman could just make out Dr. Jackson's Slavic tones. But he couldn't quite catch the words.

"I see." Ed seemed to deflate all of a sudden on hearing what the doctor said, looking suddenly much older than his years. Alec started to get alarmed. What could possibly be going on?

"No, Doctor," the commander answered, closing his eyes wearily. "There are no living relatives to contact. Her sister was her last remaining family, and she died in a train accident two years ago." After a moment, he said, "Right. Keep me informed about her condition. Thank you."

When he hung up the phone, he continued to stand where he was a moment longer, staring off at nothing in particular. Then he sighed, picked up his coffee cup, and went over to the pot to refill it.

Alec had no idea what to say. The somber tone that had entered the room with that phone call hinted at things he wasn't sure he wanted to know about. Especially if it had affected Ed that powerfully.

But after the commander had returned to his chair behind his desk and taken a few sips of the hot coffee, he seemed to notice that he wasn't alone in the office and looked over at his friend. Alec barely kept himself from flinching at the pain in his friend's eyes, but the commander seemed to catch the reaction anyway and sat back, closing his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them once more, his expression was carefully shuttered.

"The female alien Paul rescued isn't an alien after all," he said quietly.

Freeman blinked in shock. "What the devil – ?"

Straker acknowledged his surprise with a smile that was more a grimace. "Do you remember Lt. Patricia Collier from Hanscom Air Force Base outside Boston?"

"Hell, Ed! That's been a few years," complained his friend. Then he thought about it. "Nope," he said finally. "I don't remember any Patricias at Hanscom. There was a waitress at the bar we went to in Peabody, though, named Patty. I don't recall her last name, but you probably don't mean her anyway. Well, there was a Trisha Collier who was assigned to your office for a while." At his friend's nod, he said, "Oh. Patricia. Trisha. Right." He shrugged. "Sorry. I'd never heard of her referred to so formally."

"No," Straker said quietly. "She preferred to be called Trisha."

Alec blinked at him. "Are you saying that green woman we've got at the hospital is Trisha?"

"Yes." The commander gave a deep sigh. "Jackson just called to confirm it. Her fingerprints are an exact match."

"How in the hell – ?"

"I don't know, Alec," said his friend wearily, running a hand across the back of his neck to relieve some of the tension sitting there. "And if she doesn't come out of the coma, we may never know what happened to her."

"Wasn't she considered AWOL?" Freeman said, trying to remember the details that far back.

"Yes. She was reported missing on August 30th. No trace of where she went was ever found. Her family never heard from her again, and it was assumed that she suffered a mental breakdown and went off the grid."

The colonel grunted. "We had a lot of that in those days. Hell, we still get some who lose it after a while. It's not an easy job we do."

"No. It's not," agreed his friend, sitting back in his chair and forcing his muscles to relax.

After a minute or two, Alec spoke. "I wonder who reported her missing? Did she have a roommate? A boyfriend?"

"She lived alone," his friend said quietly. "No roommate. No – boyfriend."

"Then how did we know she was missing? Was it when she didn't report to work? Do you remember who called it in?"

Straker met his friend's eyes, his own dark with memories. "I did."

When Straker arrived at the hospital that evening, Dr. Jackson met him at the front entrance.

"It wasn't necessary for you to come out personally, Commander," the doctor said as they stood in the hall. "There isn't anything that can be done at this point except wait for the end."

"I understand," Straker said brusquely. "I wanted to come."

Jackson looked concerned. "It might have been better if you hadn't come. We will certainly call you when it's over. You don't have to witness it yourself."

"Yes," the commander said tersely. "I do."

In the face of his determination, the doctor stopped trying to get him to leave. In silence he led him to the secure wing of the hospital and into the guarded room where Patricia Collier, formerly of the United States Air Force, lay dying.

Straker approached the bed, gazing down upon her face, grey now beneath the wash of green from the liquid oxygen, but still beautiful. Still unforgettable. With a pang, he remembered her smile and the way it lit up her face and shone in her eyes. Her vibrant eyes were closed now, as they had been the other time he'd visited her. He suddenly envied Paul his momentary view of them when he'd rescued her.

They had an oxygen mask over the lower part of her face to keep her breathing from being so labored, but he could hear how hard it was for her to force air in and out of her lungs. Without a word, he pulled up a chair and sat at the side of the bed, taking her green-tinted hand in his. Jackson stood irresolute for several moments, trying to come up with the right words to say. Something – anything – to lessen the commander's pain. But in the end, there was nothing that could be said. He silently left the room, softly closing the door behind him. He instructed the guard not to let anyone disturb the commander or the patient – unless or until a code blue sounded in the room.

The guard nodded his understanding and stood at attention as the doctor walked away. Whatever thoughts he had about the oddness of the situation he kept to himself.

Dr. Jackson was surprised when he woke in the morning that he had not been called to the hospital during the night. He immediately called to check on the status of his patient and was told that her condition remained the same. He dressed quickly and headed for the hospital to check for himself. They had not expected her to survive the night, and he was astonished that she had lasted this long. How her lingering might be affecting the commander he did not dare let himself speculate on.

He found the commander asleep in the chair beside her bed, his haggard face softened slightly in repose, but his hand still firmly clasping hers. Jackson checked the readouts for her vitals and was a bit surprised to see that they were actually improved since last night. Not much, but definitely worthy of note. His gaze was drawn back to those clasped hands, and he belatedly realized what the commander was attempting. He was willing her to live, channeling his own indomitable will through their touch into her weakened frame. Giving her his own strength, his own lifeforce, in an effort to stave off death.

The doctor left the room as silently as he'd come, trying not to disturb either the commander or his patient. But he wore a troubled frown as he went down the hall to his office. The commander's selfless act spoke of a devotion that went far beyond anything the doctor had seen before, and Jackson wasn't certain how the commander would handle it if she died in the end in spite of his sacrifice. But that wasn't his biggest worry, because the strength of that devotion also left him unsure that it would be to anyone's benefit if the Collier woman did manage to recover. There surely could never be a more unacceptable choice for the commander to become entangled with than this woman who had spent the past fifteen years among the enemy? And that was assuming that she hadn't been sent here for the express purpose of messing the commander up.

The doctor sighed and sat behind his desk, checking his blotter for any new messages. This situation was quickly becoming a no-win scenario, and he disliked even the thought of having to deal with such a dilemma. Especially when it directly concerned the most important person in their organization.

**Chapter 4**

Three days later, Dr. Jackson decided it was time to intervene. Early in the morning, he quietly entered Miss Collier's room and caught the commander just as he was stirring.

Straker blinked wearily a few times until he was able to focus on Jackson's face, then he made an effort to sit up in the chair and look as if he had not been asleep the moment before.

As if the psychiatrist would be fooled by such a ruse. Dr. Jackson checked the readout on her vitals, then turned to the commander with a stern eye. "Commander Straker, my patient is no longer in any danger of dying, thanks to your efforts. If we are fortunate, she may even come out of the coma in time, now that her body is on the mend. Right now, she is not my main concern."

"What is?" Straker asked softly, his expressive blue eyes somehow showing both his relief that her condition was greatly improved and his anxiety that there might be a further problem.

"The condition of the commander of this organization."

"I see."

When no other comment was forthcoming, Jackson's lips tightened, and he said, "I am ordering you off these premises for the next twenty-four hours. You may not return to the hospital before tomorrow, nor may you go in to the studio or HQ to work. You need rest, Commander. Right now you look a lot worse off than my patient, and that is unacceptable."

"If there's an emergency . . .?"

"I will, of course, notify you at once," replied the doctor calmly.

The extent of Straker's weariness was made obvious by the fact that he offered no further argument, but merely sighed and stood up, gently placing Patricia's hand onto the coverlet before heading for the door.

The doctor followed him, but said nothing until they reached the main entrance. Then he gestured to the limousine waiting outside and said, "I took the liberty of calling for your ride."

Straker shook his head at this and said, "That was hardly necessary, Doctor. I can drive home."

"Perhaps," Jackson agreed, but not as if he believed it. "But since your chauffeur is already here, it will be unnecessary to tax your strength that far. I will have your car sent to your house later in the day."

The commander gave him a hard look, and the psychiatrist was a little relieved that he could still manage it in his exhaustion. "You take a lot upon yourself, Doctor. Watch your step."

Jackson made no comment until his weary superior was at the door of the limousine. Then he said, "A full twenty-four hours, Commander. I'll be checking to make sure of it."

Straker acknowledged that comment with another dark look, then got into the car without a word.

Dr. Jackson waited until the limousine had disappeared down the lane before he let out the breath he'd been holding. Then he smiled to himself.

That had gone better than he'd expected.

It wasn't until Straker got the phone call from Jackson that he'd been waiting for that he realized that now his problems would really begin. As he drove his sleek bronze car to the hospital, he considered how worried he'd been these past two weeks. First, he'd been concerned that Trisha would even survive the injuries she'd sustained in the crash. Then, once that care was lifted, he'd been worried this past week that she would remain in a coma indefinitely, and they would never find out what had happened to her or what had finally brought her home. But the doctor's call an hour ago had stated that she had regained consciousness for a few moments this morning. And now the commander found that he had a whole new set of worries to consider.

What would they find when they spoke to her? Would she still be the Trisha that he remembered from so long ago – brilliant and dedicated? Or would she be mentally damaged, destroyed by her captors over the past fifteen years? Or perhaps she had escaped that fate only to be incapacitated by her head injury in the UFO crash?

He didn't know, and almost couldn't bear finding out which reality he would be forced to handle. While she had been in a coma, this particular worry had been secondary to the primary importance of saving her life. But now that he had somehow managed to ward off death long enough for her to get a foothold to climb back into life once more, all the possibilities of her existence for the past decade and a half came crowding back into his mind, tormenting him with their dark potential and the horrific outcome he might face if he was forced to terminate her now.

He set his jaw and put his foot to the gas, refusing to baulk at this point in her recovery. _One step at a time_, he told himself. He'd deal with what he had to when he had to – and not before. It wasn't denial – exactly. It was more along the lines of self-preservation. At this moment, he honestly didn't think his sanity could take trying to find a viable solution to every possible scenario that might occur.

And certainly not while his emotions were still in an uproar where she was concerned.

When he arrived at the hospital, he found Paul Foster there as well. He tried not to be annoyed by the colonel's presence. He was aware that Paul felt a strong attachment to her because of saving her life in the crash, and could hardly fault him for that. However, his greeting to Foster was still a trifle curt, and he knew he would have been much less tense if the colonel had found something else to do this morning.

"Foster. Dr. Jackson."

"Commander Straker," said the doctor. "Thank you for coming. Miss Collier has been dozing on and off all morning, and hopefully will be aware of her surroundings when we speak to her. Try not to confuse her by talking all at once. Give her time to recognize you first." When the two men nodded in agreement, he gestured to the guard to open the door.

She was fighting for her life against a much stronger opponent. As they wrestled on the cold stone floor, she struggled to see him clearly through her tears. She couldn't let him succeed. She had to stop him any way she could. But she sobbed, because she knew instinctively that the only way to effectively stop him was to kill him.

And she couldn't bring herself to do that.

But when he got his hands around her throat and cut off her breath, her options ran out. And she frantically reached for her knife and drew it out of its hidden sheath, plunging it into his chest just under the third rib. She watched the fierce light die out of his blue blue eyes as his hands fell from her neck, and she closed her own eyes, crying even harder. Eventually she made herself rise and clean her dagger on his jacket. Then she looked down at his still form. He was dead. She had won.

Then why did she feel as though she was the one who had died?

Her eyes flew open, and she looked around in bewilderment. A white ceiling met her gaze, and she realized that she was lying down – but on a bed instead of a stone floor. _Where was she?_ A sob rose in her throat, but was choked off when someone spoke nearby.

"It's all right," the man said in an oddly-accented voice. "You are safe now."

She turned her head and saw a small wiry man wearing a doctor's white coat beside the bed. "Who are you?" she asked in surprise, her voice rusty from disuse. "Where am I?"

"You're in a hospital, and I am Dr. Jackson," he replied.

"A hospital?" she asked, astonished beyond belief. She looked around her and saw a few machines beside the bed. None of them were turned on, and they looked so complex that she had no idea what they did. But the IV stand she did recognize and managed to relax somewhat. She turned back to the doctor and saw that he wasn't the only one in the room with her. Another man came forward just then and smiled at her.

"Hello, Patricia. How are you feeling?"

She frowned at him. "I know you," she said softly, almost sure of it. "How do I know you?"

He grinned at her. "I pulled you from the crash. You opened your eyes for a moment and saw me. Remember?"

She tried to think, but her mind was fuzzy. "I – I don't know. Thank you, though."

His grin widened, revealing a very charming countenance. "Anytime."

Another man came into view just then, and she reacted violently to the sight of him. It was the man she had just fought with! Just killed! When she'd awakened, she'd thought it had simply been a nightmare. A bad dream, even though it had been so vivid. But he was _here! _Was she still dreaming? Would he kill her this time?

"_No!_" she cried, bringing up her hands in defense and kicking against the restrictive blankets covering her.

Hands restrained her as she thrashed about. She saw his face come closer as his strong hands held her fast, and she sobbed in fear and terror, unable to tear her eyes away from his grim blue gaze. Suddenly a numbness spread through her limbs, deadening her ability to fight, and she realized belatedly that she had been drugged.

"No!" she sighed as her eyes closed of their own accord.

As she slumped onto the bed, Dr. Jackson met Commander Straker's eyes across her inert form. The psychiatrist was standing on the other side of the bed after administering the sedative into her IV, and there were many questions in his upraised brows.

But as the commander looked down into the sleeping face of the woman whose hands he still held in restraint, Straker didn't have a clue about any of the answers.

**Chapter 5**

When she woke again, only the doctor was in the room. He came over to the bed when he saw that she was conscious.

"How are you feeling?" he asked in his unusual voice.

She swallowed. "A little stupid, actually. I'm sorry for over-reacting like that. Who was that man?"

Jackson frowned at her. "You didn't recognize him?"

She pulled herself up a bit and sat back against the pillows. "I – thought I did, but I must have been wrong."

"Why is that?"

She shrugged sheepishly. "Well, he didn't kill me."

"Who do you think he is?" the doctor asked curiously.

Her hand went to her head, and she rubbed her temple for a moment. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"His name is Commander Straker, and he is in charge of this investigation."

She blinked. "Commander? Then this is a military hospital?"

"Does that surprise you?"

She laid back against the pillows with a sigh. "Doctor, at this point, there's very little that _doesn't_ surprise me. Nothing looks familiar to me." She glanced down at her arms and hands with a grimace. "I don't even recognize myself!"

He laid a reassuring hand on her arm, hearing the worry in her voice. "The color shall fade over time. Indeed, it is already much lighter than it was at first."

"That's good to know." She took a deep breath and tackled the tougher question. "Doctor, the other man called me something. A name."

"Yes. Patricia. Does that sound familiar to you?"

"No," she said, frowning. "Are you sure that's my name?"

"Yes. We have a positive fingerprint match. Patricia Collier. You were a lieutenant in the United States Air Force."

"Oh." She blinked at that. "Well, I guess that means it probably wasn't a car crash I was involved in, as I first thought. Did I wreck a plane then?"

"Give yourself some time," the doctor soothed. "You've been in a coma for two weeks, and although you are in much better shape than when you arrived, you will need some time before you are completely well again."

She frowned at him, realizing that he had sidestepped her question. "Who was the man who pulled me from the crash? The one who called me Patricia?"

"Col. Foster."

The name meant nothing to her, but the fact that he was also military gave her hope that he might be able to answer some of her questions. "Can I speak to him?"

She might have imagined his brief hesitation before answering. "Yes, of course. I'll see if he is available."

"Thank you."

When the doctor returned to his office, he nearly sighed when he saw that both men were still present. He had hoped that at least one of them would have gone to HQ by now. But apparently they were both willing to wait here indefinitely. Jackson did not relish being anywhere near the emotional minefield he would be forced to navigate now – let alone smack in the middle of it.

"How is she, Doctor?" Foster asked as he entered.

Jackson's eyes met the commander's for a second, then he said, "She's awake. And apparently embarrassed by her outburst earlier."

"Did she explain why she reacted so violently?" Straker asked quietly.

"Er – not in detail," the doctor replied before turning to the colonel. "She has asked to see you, Col. Foster. I know I don't have to tell you to keep your answers as vague as possible."

"Right." Paul left the room, so eager to see her again that he barely heard the doctor's admonition.

Dr. Jackson looked at the commander, who quickly shuttered his own expression behind a mask of blandness. But the psychiatrist had no doubt of his true feelings. It didn't take a medical degree to understand what Straker must be experiencing at the moment. The hard part would be to keep the pity he felt from the commander's notice. He cleared his throat and said, "I did not wish to discuss her reaction in front of the colonel."

Straker looked swiftly at him. "Then – she did explain?"

"Somewhat." Jackson lifted his hands in a shrug. "She thought you were trying to kill her."

The commander stiffened in shock. "Why would she – ?"

"We have no idea what conditioning she may have received on the alien planet, Commander. Surely you anticipated the possibility that she might have been programmed to consider you an enemy?"

Straker turned away and looked out the office window. He said curtly, "I suppose so."

After a moment or two, the doctor went behind his desk and sat, checking his messages for anything of importance. He hoped that the commander would take the hint; and indeed, shortly thereafter, Straker turned from the window and headed for the door.

But he didn't leave; just stood holding the doorknob for a minute. Finally he looked over at the doctor, his expression carefully blank, and said, "Will you keep me informed about – ?"

When he faltered, Jackson said swiftly, "Of course, Commander."

Straker nodded and left the office without another word, but the doctor was uneasily aware that his compassion for the commander's situation had come through in his final words. He could only hope that his superior would not hate him too much for it.

"You nearly died. I was so relieved when we heard that you were finally beginning to recover," Paul said in response to her question about the crash.

"I wish I could be positive this isn't all just a dream," she sighed.

"Oh, come on!" he teased. "If this was a dream, surely you'd be in a nicer room than this?"

She answered his grin with a wry one of her own as she looked around at the rather bare room. "Maybe," she conceded. "But the view is incredible."

He followed her gaze to the room's only window. "That's the spirit!"

"It bothers me that I can't seem to remember anything. My brain feels like it's filled with mush."

He shrugged in unconcern. "It'll come back to you. The first few days after a wreck are always the worst, you know. Nothing makes any sense, and you feel all out of whack. It gets easier. I promise."

She grimaced. "In fact, I should just stop whining and be glad I'm alive. Isn't that what you're saying?"

Paul laughed. "Well, not in so many words."

She held out a hand to him and said when he took it, "Thanks, Paul. I appreciate your help in putting all this into perspective."

He flushed with pleasure. "Happy to be of assistance," he assured her.

**Chapter 6**

When she woke in the morning from a repeat of her nightmare, she lay gasping for a few minutes, trying to get her system to settle down. Then she wiped away the tears from her cheeks and hit the call button. When the nurse entered, she asked her if she could talk to the doctor. She was assured that he would be in to see her as soon as he was free, and she had to be content with that.

Col. Foster came to see her, but found her rather restless. He tried to engage her in conversation, but her attention kept shifting toward the view outside the window, and she lost track of what he was saying. He showed her how to work the remote for the tv, but she found its inane chatter annoying and soon turned it off. Finally, he left the room for a moment, then returned with a backgammon board he'd unearthed from somewhere. He set it up on the bed with a grin, and she smiled wryly, doing her best to focus on his attempt to cheer her up. She succeeded so well that she skunked him by the third game.

He left when they brought in her lunch, saying cheerfully that he'd stop by the next day. She was surprised that he hadn't found her a dead bore. She knew she wasn't being the best patient at the moment. The enforced inactivity was driving her mad.

By the time Dr. Jackson visited her, she was ready to chew nails.

His large eyes seemed to notice her tension, even though she did her best not to show it. "How are you feeling today, Miss Collier?"

She sighed. "I'm okay, Doctor. Just a little tired. Listen. How long am I going to be stuck here? I think I'd recover my memories faster if I could get back to work."

"Perhaps," he said, watching her without seeming to as he checked her vitals. "But you were pretty badly injured, you know. We need to monitor your recovery for a while yet."

"Well, is there any work I can do from here?" she asked, a thread of impatience finding its way into her voice despite her efforts.

"What you must understand, Miss Collier, is that you cannot return to work until the investigation concerning your accident is complete."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that." She met his eyes and swallowed. "I need to talk to the commander, don't I?"

"That will be a necessary step in the investigation, yes. But it can wait until you feel more comfortable."

She took a deep breath. "No. That's okay. I want to talk to him." And she realized when she said the words that it was true. She had to face the nightmare and try to make some sense of it, or it would haunt her for the rest of her life. Maybe the commander would have some answers for her. Even if he didn't, she knew she at least had to try.

"Very well," the doctor said, wishing he could be certain that he was doing the right thing. "I shall let him know that you will see him."

"Thank you."

When Commander Straker entered her hospital room a short while later, her eyes widened involuntarily. But otherwise, she kept herself under control, forcing even her heart rate not to race as it wanted to do. He seemed to fill the room with his presence, although he was not a large man. She watched as he laid his briefcase onto the small table and sat on the chair beside it. The fact that he made no effort to approach the bed and crowd her she found encouraging, and she relaxed a bit more.

"You asked to see me," he said calmly, and she had to suppress a shiver at the first sound of his voice. It was like a voice from a dream, and she had to firm her lips to keep them from trembling.

"Um – yes. Dr. Jackson said that you were in charge of the investigation surrounding my crash."

"Yes."

She swallowed. "I want to get things going, so that I can get back to work as soon as possible."

"I see."

"I also wanted to apologize for my outburst yesterday."

"It's quite unnecessary, I assure you."

"I suppose you have questions you need me to answer?" she said, eying his briefcase.

"Yes. But that will wait a bit. How are you feeling?"

She settled back against the pillows behind her head. "Okay. A bit restless. I'm not used to being idle."

"I'm sure you're not. How are you doing remembering things?"

"Well, not so well actually." She rubbed her temple. "Everything feels so weird that it makes it hard to latch onto anything."

"Weird in what way?" he asked as if her statement were nothing out of the ordinary.

His calm acceptance made it easier for her to explain. "Like – my name, for instance. I don't know it. I mean, the doctor told me what it is, but I can't seem to get it. It sounds like someone else. Not me. Shouldn't I be able to latch onto it? Even though I didn't remember it, shouldn't a light bulb or something have gone off when I heard it and I would just know that it's me?"

"Not necessarily. With amnesia – traumatic amnesia, which seems to be what you're suffering from for the most part – what the mind can grasp differs from case to case, and even from day to day. I know it's frustrating for you, but you need to take it slowly, trying not to force yourself to remember, but simply letting things come back as they will. I assure you, it's the best way."

She was so grateful that he understood her frustration level that she almost accepted the rest of his statement without comment. But finally she said, "That would be fine, but it's not just my name that feels off. It's everything!"

"Everything is a pretty comprehensive term. Can you narrow it down a bit? Does the hospital seem odd to you?"

"No. Yes." She shook her head in despair. "See, it's not the hospital itself so much. But the machines they had in here – the ones they took out last night? – they didn't look at all like anything I'd ever seen before."

"That's easily explained," he said. "Surely you know that the military has access to technology not yet available to the general populace? Give it a few years, and you'll begin to see those kinds of machines used in the larger public hospitals."

She blinked at him. "Oh. I didn't even think of that." She smiled tentatively at him in relief.

"What else?" he prompted, trying not to be seduced into answering that smile.

She grimaced and gestured to the window. "Um – the view."

He was startled and turned to glance out the window before looking back at her. "What's wrong with it?"

"The sky. It's all off. I mean, it's beautiful. So blue I want to cry. But it shouldn't be, should it?"

He went very still for a moment, then said, "What color should it be?"

She nervously rubbed her temple again. "You'll think I'm crazy."

"Not at all," he assured her calmly. "What do you think it should look like outside?"

She frowned at him for a moment, but was obviously reassured by his expression that he was taking her seriously, because she answered. "I don't know. A dirty yellow maybe."

"Yellow?" he asked softly.

She nodded. "Like the skin of an onion."

"I see. Anything else?"

She stared out the window, but her eyes were farther away than that. "Yes. The trees. They're too green, too round. Too full of leaves. I know it sounds stupid, because they look just like they should. But it's wrong!"

"How should they look?"

She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Stunted. Warped. Naked of any leaves. No green whatsoever." She sighed and looked at him. "So. Am I certifiable?"

"Not in the least." He sat forward in the chair. "Your mind is processing memories right now. Showing you things that are important. I know they make no sense to you now, but they will as more memories surface. I want you to keep track of them, if you would. No matter how odd they might seem to you. Will you do that?"

"Alright." She was so relieved that he hadn't thought she was insane that she would have agreed to anything. She watched as he took a small notebook from his briefcase and brought it to her, along with a pen. She accepted them, but frowned when he would not meet her eyes, but instead walked back to the table.

He said nothing for a while, just looked out the window. But she knew he had something to say, so she watched him. Something about the way he stood seemed so familiar to her. She had no idea why, and maybe she was just imagining things, but she would swear that she'd seen him stand just that way before. She tried to picture it – and almost had it when he spoke, and the memory dispersed like a puff of smoke.

"I know this is difficult for you, Trisha, but I also know that you can do it. I suppose I should tell you that . . ."

"What did you say?" she interrupted breathlessly.

He turned and met her widened eyes. "I was explaining . . ."

"You called me Trisha."

"Well – yes. You see, as I was trying to explain, you used to work for me. I'm afraid that I'm used to calling you that."

She smiled beautifully at him. "That's my name. It's Trisha. I knew I'd know it when I heard it! I knew it!"

"Oh." He wanted to kick himself for not realizing sooner. "I'm so sorry. I knew that you preferred to be called Trisha, but it never occurred to me why you didn't respond to your full name."

She hugged herself, feeling as though the pieces of her identity were finally coming together. Her dark eyes were luminous as she told him, "Thank you. Thank you so much!"

He had to look away from her or be lost completely. "Not at all," he murmured distractedly. He watched the trees outside the window toss their branches in the breeze and said suddenly, "Would you like to see outside?"

"What?" she asked in bewilderment, caught off-guard by his question.

He moved one of the chairs at the table over near the window and gestured to it. "Would you like to see it better?"

"You mean, get out of bed?" she asked, a little uncertain. The doctor had been so strict with her that she wasn't sure if it would be allowed.

"Yes."

She frowned at him. "Can I?"

His brow raised tauntingly. "I don't know. Can you?"

Suddenly she grinned, and pushing aside the blankets, put her legs down the side of the bed. He came closer just then, but did not touch her. He simply waited nearby as she stood up for the first time. After she took a few tentative steps, he draped her robe around her shoulders.

"Thanks," she said and concentrated on making it to the chair he had set for her. "It's silly, but I'm as weak as a kitten!"

"It's not silly at all. You're doing very well for someone who hasn't been out of bed in two weeks."

She gave a somewhat breathless laugh. "I don't know how it is, but you always seem to make everything seem normal when I know it's not."

"That must be annoying," he said contritely.

She sat down in the chair with a sigh of relief and turned to give him a smile. "Actually, it's not. It must be nice to be able to take everything in stride." She turned back to the window and gasped at the view. Everywhere she looked it was green – the leaves on the trees, the grass on the wide lawn. As the branches swayed against the sky, her eyes were drawn to how blue it was. Tiny white clouds glided across its expanse as if they hadn't a care in the world.

"Oh! It's so wonderful!" Her palms were pressed against the glass, her wide eyes devouring everything she saw. She blinked furiously, realizing after a few minutes that she was crying. "I'm so sorry," she said in embarrassment as she swiped at her cheeks. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Don't apologize," he said huskily. "It's fine."

He watched as she immersed herself in the view, more moved than he had thought he could be by her joy in seeing her world for the first time in fifteen years. She didn't know it yet, at least not consciously. But deep inside her she had to be aware that this moment was special.

"Where is this place?" she asked in wonder. "Where are we?"

"Wessex," he told her. "South of London."

She smiled mistily out the window. "This blessed green, this earth, this realm, this England," she murmured, misquoting slightly.

"Exactly."

She turned after a moment and said, "I don't even know who said that or what it's from. But it fits, doesn't it?"

"It certainly does," he agreed as he looked over her shoulder to the view outside. "Shakespeare said it in a play."

"Figures."

He almost grinned, aware that she was remembering her past even though she didn't realize it yet. She had always had a healthy regard for the playwright, and would quote him occasionally when she couldn't help herself. And even when she held her tongue, he'd often see the quote forming behind her eyes, and they'd share a silent moment of mirth that no one else understood.

He stood up before he lost himself in the past with her and gathered his briefcase. She turned to look at him, and he came to her chair, laying a hand on hers for a moment as he said, "Stay here a while and enjoy the view. I'll leave the call button here for you in case you need a nurse's help getting back to the bed."

She watched him walk to the door, overwhelmingly aware of the tingling in her hand from his touch. "Thank you."

"Would you like me to come see you tomorrow?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"Please."

He gave her a short nod. "I'll see you then," he said and left the room.

**Chapter 7**

Straker woke from the dream gasping and had to sit at the edge of the bed for a few minutes before he stopped trembling. He refused to meet his own eyes in the bathroom mirror when he splashed cold water on his face, and he didn't make the mistake of trying to go back to bed. Instead, he went into his study and worked on studio scripts. He chose a few to read that featured lots of action and explosions and stayed well away from anything that had any semblance of a romantic scene in it.

Especially anything that included a secluded beach on the ocean.

Their movements harmonized with the rhythm of the incoming tide; their moans a soft counterpoint. The wet sand was still warm from the day's heat beneath her as she gazed up into her lover's eyes. His beautiful eyes made silver by the light of the full moon overhead.

"Trisha!"

He froze in ecstasy for an eternal moment, his lean body delineated artistically by the moon's light so that it looked like a magnificent sculpture done in the finest marble. She shuddered and clung to him as he collapsed onto her, both of them as carried away as the flotsam and jetsam riding on the ocean's tide.

"Ed!" she sighed, running her hands through his wet hair, luxuriating in the thrill of life flowing all around her – happy to drown in him.

Her eyes flew open, and she stared at the white ceiling above her bed. Her body ached in places she hadn't even considered in so long that she had forgotten they existed. She lifted a hand to her cheek, where she could almost feel his breath still lingering.

Dear God. _What had that been? _Was she such a pathetic creature that she built entire fantasies around the first man who was kind to her? She shuddered and buried her face in the pillow. What a fool she was! What an utter idiot!

But – oh! – it had felt so real. The surge of the ocean around them, the glorious weight of his body on hers, the warmth of the sand at her back. The passion that had taken them both into a world of their own for that precious space of time. Could she have imagined that?

Her eyes flew open as she thought of another possibility. One that took her breath away by the mere concept that it might be true. What if her dream had been a _memory? _She shuddered once more, but not in shame this time. She drew a shaky breath and stared at the ceiling again, thinking back over his visit. Had there been anything in his demeanor that might signify that they had that kind of a history between them? Anything at all?

She didn't get back to sleep for quite a while.

Paul visited in the morning and brought her a gift. "I thought you might be getting bored," he said as he handed it to her.

"What is it?" she said, turning it this way and that.

He chuckled. "It's a laptop."

"Okay," she said, still in the dark.

"A computer." He grinned at her surprise, then said, "Really."

"But – how is that possible? Computers take up an entire room. They don't fit into anything this small. Or is this just the terminal?"

"No, it's the whole thing. Open it."

She frowned at him. "How?"

He chuckled and came closer, flipping up the top to reveal the screen and keyboard.

"Whoa!" she said, suitably impressed.

"That's nothing," he said with a smirk. "Wait till I turn it on."

When Straker visited her that afternoon, he found her seated at the window with the table pushed close so that the laptop could sit at a comfortable height for her to work on it.

"Well!" he said dramatically. "What's this?"

She'd been staring somberly at the screen when he entered, but she looked up at his words and gave him an absent smile. He noted as he came to the table to sit across from her that she turned off the computer and closed the top. If he wondered what she'd been studying that she wanted to hide, he didn't let it show.

"Paul brought it for me," she said. "He thought I might be getting bored."

It bothered him that she was on a first name basis with Foster, but he could hardly fault either of them for it. In spite of his training, the colonel would see no reason to keep her at arm's length. And Trisha was probably glad to have a visitor who didn't ask anything from her but her company.

"That was thoughtful of him. What do you think of it?"

"I'm amazed by it," she admitted. "It's hard to believe everything you can do on it."

"Such as?"

"Well, there's word processing in all its possibilities, a calculator, an appointment calendar, and even a desktop publishing program. Not to mention all the games!"

He smiled. "I seem to remember hearing somewhere that Paul holds the current high score for Frogger."

"Yeah. He was pretty excited about showing me that game."

"What was your favorite?"

"Actually, I was more interested in all the things you could look up online. The number of databases available for research is incredible."

"Indeed?" he said blandly, while inwardly he cursed Paul for bringing her such a toy. "And what did you research?"

She tapped a finger on the laptop. "I looked me up in the military database." She'd also looked up him, but she wasn't about to tell him that. Besides, the only thing she'd been able to find out about him was that once they'd both been stationed at the same base. A base near the ocean.

"I see."

Disgusted with that curt response, she said harshly, "Were you even going to tell me the truth?"

Straker sighed. "Trisha, your amnesia makes it difficult for us to debrief you as we would normally. We are forced to proceed carefully in an effort not to give your system too much of a shock at one time. We're honestly not trying to keep the truth from you. It's just better all around if you remember these things on your own."

"A shock? When did you think it would be okay to tell me that I've been gone _fifteen years? _When was that not going to be one hell of a shock, Commander?"

"We hoped you would realize it on your own. We thought that might lessen the jolt for you."

She eyed him narrowly for a few minutes. "How many other surprises do you have in store for me, I wonder?"

"I'm sorry. I know this isn't easy."

She sat back with a disgruntled sigh. "Well, that's quite an understatement!" After a moment spent brooding, she glanced over at him and said, "So. When I worked for you, it was in some office?"

"Yes."

"What did I do? Was I a pilot?"

"You knew how to fly, but your main work was as an analyst."

She grimaced. "That sounds like fun."

His lips quirked momentarily at her sarcasm. "Actually, you were brilliant at it. The best I've ever worked with."

"Huh." After a short silence while she absorbed that, she asked, "Did you used to wear your hair differently? Parted on the side and slicked back?"

He blinked. "Er – yes, I did. Do you remember that?"

She nodded. "I kept getting this flash of you behind a desk, but your hair looked different than it does now. Well, fifteen years is a long time." She ran a hand self-consciously through her wild curls. "I guess I don't wear my hair the same way either."

"It's lovely loose," he said softly.

She flushed and looked away for a moment. "I wasn't fishing," she mumbled. After her flush had faded somewhat, she glanced back at him. "Commander, where have I been all this time?"

"We're not sure."

"Oh. I guess I thought you knew."

"We're hoping that you can tell us eventually."

"I'll try."

He gave her a nod. "That's all we ask."

She looked out the window at the wide expanse of lawn. "I guess it wasn't anywhere near here."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because all this green looks so out of place. Even when I know that's how it's supposed to look. Could I have been in a desert?"

"It's possible."

She sighed and glanced at him. "I suppose it's not going to be such a simple matter for me to get out of here and back to work, is it?"

"You're doing well, Trisha. Much better than we expected."

"If you tell me I have to be more patient, I guarantee you I'll throw something."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said blandly. He knew she had never had a quick temper, but he was also quite aware that her situation had to be incredibly frustrating for her. She was improving by the day, and soon they would find it extremely hard to keep her confined to one room.

There was quiet for a while as she brooded out the window. He waited her out, certain that she had more to say. Eventually she spoke.

"I remembered a few things today. My sister – at least, I think she was my sister. We were running through a sprinkler on a hot day and laughing like crazy. And my parents. Just their faces mostly. But I think we were on a camping trip somewhere."

"That's wonderful news."

She swallowed, wishing she could ask him about her dream, but knowing no way to broach such a subject. So instead she said, "I keep having this nightmare. I had it the first time just as I was waking up that first day."

Straker leaned forward, laying his arms on the table between them. "Can you talk about it?"

"I don't want to. I have a feeling that it will make it more real somehow. But I know I have to figure out what it means. And I haven't been able to do that on my own. Would you help me? If it's about something you know about, but I haven't remembered yet – will you tell me anyway?"

He took a deep breath. "I can't promise, Trisha. But I'll do what I can."

"I suppose that will have to be good enough. In the nightmare, I'm fighting with this man. He's really strong, and he's trying to kill me." She flicked a glance at him, but his expression gave nothing away. He merely looked interested in hearing more. So she continued. "But I don't want to kill him. I want to stop him. But I can't bring myself to hurt him."

"Is that when you wake up?"

"No. He – he starts to strangle me, and I – I realize that I can't let him win." Again she flicked a glance toward him. "So I kill him with a knife I have. That's when I wake up."

He frowned at her, unsure whether she was speaking of an actual nightmare – or something worse. "You said that you've had this nightmare more than once?"

"Yes. Every morning I have it just as I'm waking up. It's why I reacted so strongly when I first saw you in my room."

"Because you were frightened?"

She swallowed again. "No. Because you were the man. The man I killed."

He met her dark eyes for a long moment. Then he sat back and gestured with a lean hand. "You shouldn't let it bother you, Trisha. It's just a dream. A rather nasty one, but still – just a dream. You obviously didn't kill me, so it could hardly be more than that, could it?"

"I know that," she said worriedly. "But it's so real! And how I feel – that's very real too."

"How do you feel in the dream?"

She met his eyes sadly. "I'm crying. The whole time, I'm crying, because I don't want to do it. But afterward – afterward I feel something else. And that's why I need to understand what it means."

He refused to let his mind consider any possible explanations for her dream. He'd think about it later, when she wasn't around to notice his concern. "What do you feel afterward, Trisha?" he said as normally as he could manage.

"I get this sense of urgency. Like there's something really important that I need to do. I know it doesn't make any sense, but it happens at the end of the nightmare every time. Does it mean anything to you?"

"No."

She sighed dejectedly. "I was afraid of that."

As she looked back out the window, he remembered with dismay Jackson's words to him that first day: that she might have been programmed to see him as an enemy. He had been so relieved that there had been no signs of it after that initial repulsion. But it hardly augured well for her complete recovery if the doctor's words turned out to be true. Especially if there was an urgency attached to the programming. Because sooner or later that urgency would force her to act.

It was only a matter of time.

**Chapter 8**

"So, have you given any thought to what you'll do once you're out of here?"

"Hmm?" she asked distractedly, then turned from the window and met his eager eyes. "Oh. I'm sorry, Paul. My mind was wandering. You were asking where I'll go?"

"Yeah." He shrugged nonchalantly and said, "You're going to have to be monitored for a while, you know, at least until most of the gaps in your memory are filled. So you won't be heading back to the States any time soon. Do you have any other plans?"

"Gaps," she said with a grimace. "They're hardly gaps, Paul. Holes is closer. Even craters. Gaps sounds so small, so insignificant. And according to the doctor, I may always have those."

"Yeah, but you're remembering more all the time. You're really doing exceptionally well, Patricia. No one expected you to get back on track so quickly."

"I suppose." She looked back out the window for a minute. "I don't know what I'll do. Get a place and a job. How does that sound for adventurous?"

His grin matched hers. "It sounds great. Listen, there's a condo right across the hall from mine that's vacant right now. Maybe you could move there. That way, you'd have your own place while still being nearby if you needed my help for anything. How does that sound?"

She met his eyes in surprise and thought, _Oh, shit_. How had this happened? She hadn't seen it coming at all. Was she just stupid? Or merely inexperienced in these things? And which was worse? "Um – Paul. You've been really nice to me, and I truly appreciate it. But don't you think it's time for you to get back to your own life? I don't want you to think you have to continue taking care of me."

"I don't mind," he said, moving closer. Without warning, he leaned in and kissed her.

And Commander Straker walked in.

She immediately jerked back, her face flaming, while Paul just smiled conspiratorially at her and said, "Think about it. Alright?"

She didn't see him leave, because she was far too embarrassed to glance in that direction. She could feel the commander's presence like a judgment as he stood stock still near the door, and she didn't dare meet his eyes. What she would have liked is for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. But since her luck had been phenomenally bad lately, she didn't think that was going to happen anytime soon.

Straker barely managed not to glare at the colonel as he left, but although he would have liked to act as though nothing had occurred, he was quite unable to take the incident in stride. Consequently, he was still very stiff when he came over to the table and set down his briefcase. He opened it and took out a sheaf of papers, setting them firmly down on the table before closing the briefcase. "I have some questions for you to answer, if you will," he said, a chill in his rich voice.

Trisha closed her eyes in mortification. _God! What must he think of her? _She had to explain. But how? "Commander, that . . . wasn't what it seemed to be."

"It's hardly any of my business," he said dismissively.

She faltered and almost let it go. But one sidelong glance at his grim face made her swallow and try again. "He – I had no idea he felt that way. Or that he was going to do that." She ran a hand through her hair in frustration, feeling like ten times a fool. "I don't think I'm used to being in that kind of situation. I certainly didn't see it coming."

He sighed, realizing that she was probably right about that. She'd only been twenty-five when he'd known her, but although that was an age when most women were already sexually active, he'd also known that she had been untouched. And he doubted very much if she'd had occasion to be romantically involved with anyone while on the alien planet. He noticed the blush in her cheeks – and wished he had punched Foster.

"You were hardly fighting him off."

She met his eyes fleetingly, then looked down at her hands as they twisted nervously together. "He saved my life," she said softly. "No matter what else he does, I'm always going to feel grateful to him for that. And it will probably always be my first reaction."

He wanted to demand her assurance that gratitude was all she had felt, but knew better than to say a word about it. He watched her fingers go to her lips and burned all over again, knowing that she was reliving that kiss. Aflame with jealousy, he almost missed her murmured words.

"He took me by surprise, but he didn't frighten me. It was rather nice, actually. I don't think I've been kissed in a very long time."

Straker knew he was probably dooming himself, but there was no way he could let her only memory of affection be from Foster. He came over to where she stood at the window and laid his hands on her cheeks, sliding his fingers into her curls. Her eyes went wide as she realized his intent, and he whispered, "May I?"

Trisha gulped, nodded, and closed her eyes, her breath catching in her throat.

He kissed her.

When he released her lips, he still held her cheeks, and his blue blue eyes filled her vision, overwhelming her completely. She gasped and kissed him back. Her response triggered an onslaught of emotion in him, and he gathered her closer, molding her body to his as he lost himself in her sweetness. Only when she moaned did he realize where he was. And what he was doing.

He released her with more haste than grace and headed for the door, knowing only that he needed air – and needed it now.

"I'm sorry."

He closed his eyes when he heard her apology. Self-preservation be damned; he could hardly leave her here feeling ashamed of her reaction. He took a deep breath and turned back to her. She stood with her arms around herself, her dark eyes wide with distress, shame, and the remnants of passion. He almost went back to her, but stopped himself in time. That wouldn't solve anything.

"No. Don't apologize," he said a trifle huskily. "I should not have let myself get carried away."

Trisha looked at him in surprise. "Did you?"

He nodded.

"Oh." She touched her fingers to her lips once more, a soft smile half-hidden behind them, and he was oddly moved to know that it was _his_ kiss she was reliving now.

The room hummed with unspoken emotion, and he had to get out of there soon or he'd do something that would make it impossible for him to continue the investigation. He glanced over her shoulder out the window – and got an idea.

"Would you like to go outside?"

She caught herself before she asked him if they could, remembering the last time. Obviously, no one here questioned his authority to do whatever he wanted. So she wouldn't either. "I'd love to."

He glanced wryly at her bare feet. "We'll see if we can't get you some slippers."

**Chapter 9**

He felt more in control of the situation when he wheeled her down the path around the perimeter of the hospital. As much as he wanted to curse himself for closing the distance between them and inviting all sorts of hell into his life in consequence, he cursed Foster even more. The colonel had no idea of the timebomb he was so carelessly playing with, and if his past actions were anything to go by, it wouldn't make any difference to him if he did. Grimly, the commander decided it was high time to send Paul to the moon.

For her part, Trisha was radiant. She now had incontrovertible proof that her dream had been an actual memory, and although fifteen years may have separated that moment from this one, it was obvious that his feelings hadn't changed all that much. She smiled at the trees that bordered the grounds, at the grass that waved gently across the lawn, and at the birds that took flight on a whim. "Did you know that no two people kiss the same?" she asked him.

He frowned down at her dark curls as she sat in the wheelchair, wondering where she was going with that question? "I hadn't thought about it," he said after a moment.

"It's true. Even time doesn't seem to play much of a part in it, when you'd think it would."

He kept pushing the wheelchair, but everything inside him had stilled at the mention of time. "Indeed?"

She turned to look up at him, a soft smile on her lips. "I remember, you know."

"Everything?"

She shook her head. "No. Not yet. But I remember you."

He stopped and looked down at her. "What do you remember about me?"

"The way you kiss, of course."

He almost sighed in relief. "I see," he said and started forward again.

"There's a beach along the Eastern coast of the United States that's quite secluded," she said. "It's beautiful in the moonlight."

Straker kept his heart from racing by an act of will, but could not stop his mind from going there. "Yes," he agreed quietly. "It's very beautiful."

She gave a sigh of contentment and said nothing more as they rounded the corner of the walkway. Then she caught sight of their destination, and she gasped, forgetting everything else in the wonder of what lay before her. "Oh, God!" she choked, brushing away her sudden tears so that she could see.

He brought the wheelchair right up to the edge of the walkway where the flowers in the formal garden were close enough to touch, and she reached out a shaky hand to gently cradle a bright tulip. She leaned over, her eyes closed as she rubbed her cheek against the dark orange bloom. "I have dreamed this," she sobbed achingly. "Over and over. The soft petals. The sweet smell of spring. The colors. Oh, God! Don't let me wake up. Please don't make me return to some dark cave."

"Trisha."

After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

He hunkered down to her level and held her gaze. "You won't wake up, Trisha. You're already awake."

She searched his eyes for a long moment, unsure. Then she whispered, "I'm awake?"

"Yes. You're home, Trisha. You're finally home."

"Home." She closed her eyes and hugged herself, her tears silent at first but then progressing to sobs. She buried her face in her hands and cried while he crouched beside her and ran a soothing hand down her curls. And if he found delight in the way the sunlight brought out the varied highlights of her hair, he didn't mention it. It wasn't a crime, after all.

After a long time, she quieted and brushed at her cheeks, embarrassed at her outburst. "Sorry."

"You really have to stop apologizing for everything," he told her as he handed her his handkerchief.

She gave him a watery grin. "Okay."

"That's better."

She reached out once more and cupped the flower, reassuring herself of its tactile reality. "I feel as though I've just been handed the world," she murmured in awe.

"In a way, you have," he agreed.

Trisha sighed and let him wheel her down the narrow paths between the flowers. She spoke little, but did her best to look everywhere at once, drinking in the sight of so many flowers in bloom. Only when he came to a stop at the far end of the garden did she say anything. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She glanced up at him curiously. "What happened between us?"

He raised a brow. "Isn't that question a little superfluous?"

She blushed and shook her head. "That's not what I meant. It couldn't have been easy. If I recall military protocol correctly, it was a definite no-no for me to be involved with a superior officer. Is it still that way?"

Straker grimaced. "Pretty much."

"Then how did we resolve it?" she asked, frowning as she tried to remember.

"We didn't."

She blinked at his curt answer, her frown deepening. "What the hell does that mean?" she asked in frustration.

He ran a hand through his hair, knowing that this moment would have come sooner or later, but wishing he had more time to formulate an acceptable answer for her. "It means that you were taken before anything was resolved, Trisha. Although we didn't know it then. I thought you'd just gotten tired of dealing with me and left. I know I'm not an easy person to be around most of the time."

"Were you angry?" she asked, watching the expressions that raced across his face.

"I – yes! I was furious. Hurt and angry and betrayed. How was I supposed to feel? But I was wrong! Wrong all these years to hate you – to blame you for leaving me to pick up the pieces once you'd gone. You hadn't left me, after all. It wasn't your fault."

Suddenly she latched onto the word he'd said: _taken_. She gasped. "I was kidnapped?"

He nodded, trying to regain some semblance of control over his emotions.

"By an enemy?"

"Yes."

She tried to relax against the back rest of the wheelchair, considering this information. But her hands were fisted around the armrests. "I suppose they were a nasty enemy – totally bad-ass and vicious?"

He nodded. "You've described them rather well. Are you remembering them?"

She shook her head. "I just figured they'd have to be pretty tough customers for no one to have tried to rescue me in fifteen years."

Straker closed his eyes. "We didn't know, Trisha. I'm sorry. We just didn't know. You were considered AWOL, and since our office already had a few problems with that, no one thought it was anything out of the ordinary. I should have, I suppose. I should have trusted you more; believed in you more. But I knew I was asking a lot of you, and . . ."

"Don't," she said. "You can't second guess yourself like that. Things always seem simple in hindsight. You said it yourself. You didn't know what had happened." She gazed at him somberly for a moment, then said, "Is that why you're heading this case yourself? Because you feel guilty?"

His blue eyes were full of turmoil when they met hers. "I – no," he said, but without conviction. "I owe you, Trisha," he said finally. "I owe you the opportunity to tell me what really happened. I need to hear it from you. No matter what it is."

She was silent so long that he glanced over to where she sat in the wheelchair. She was looking seriously at him, thinking hard. He knew that look – had seen it on her face many times just before she reached some brilliant conclusion – and he wondered what she would come up with this time?

"Even though you can't be certain that my answer will be one you can live with, right?" she said quietly. "You need to know anyway?"

"Yes."

She nodded as if that confirmed some deduction she had reached herself. Then she met his eyes. "You need to step aside and let someone else take over this investigation."

"Trisha! No!"

She firmed her mouth, shaking her head at his instinctive denial. "Do you think I can't see where you are? Nothing that happens – no memory I regain from here on out – will help you. All I can do – in fact, all I've done already – is put you in a world of hurt."

"That's not true!"

"It _is_ true!" she countered firmly. "It's like chess. You can't move forward, because every memory that surfaces could reveal that I'm actually working with the enemy now. Especially after fifteen years in their camp. And you can't move back, because the past is forcing you to deal with all the unfinished business between us and won't let you protect yourself. Any move you make, you lose. And you know as well as I do that no king belongs in that kind of position."

"Zugzwang," he said softly, surprised at how clearly she saw their situation.

She nodded. "Zugzwang. You need to take yourself out of play. I know that doesn't work in chess, but it can work in reality."

"I can't do that."

She swallowed. "You must. Do you think I want to be used as a weapon against my own king? I won't. I refuse. I'm just a damned pawn, for godsake! I don't matter in the larger scheme of things. You do. Because you're not just commander over this investigation, are you? You're in charge of the whole ball of wax! You think I can't see that? And I won't be the one to topple your crown. I _won't!_"

He had no viable argument against her fierce determination. Without a word he wheeled her back through the garden and around the walkway toward the main entrance of the hospital.

But once back in her room, he realized that he couldn't leave without trying one more time. "Trisha, I don't care about the pain. I want to be with you. I want to help you remember."

Her heart melted. "I know. Truly I do. But I have no idea what hidden thorns my memory might hold. And what I do remember and dream about doesn't look good for us, does it? Because if the one dream was actually a memory, then why not the nightmare too?"

He shook his head. "It couldn't be a memory or I'd be dead."

"You know better," she said sternly. "What if I've been brainwashed? Don't tell me you haven't considered that possibility, because I won't believe you."

He smiled wryly in spite of himself. "You always were annoyingly adamant about your conclusions."

"Was I often wrong?" she asked, hoping against hope.

"Unfortunately, no," he said with a sigh and picked up his briefcase. At the door, he met her eyes one final time and said, "I won't say good-bye. I can't. Please know that if there's anything you need – anything at all – all you have to do is ask."

"Thank you."

After the door closed softly behind him, she climbed onto the bed and buried her face in the pillow.

**Chapter 10**

It was mid-afternoon the next day before she received her first visitor of the day. She had prepared a speech for Paul that she hoped would make him understand her gratitude for all he'd done for her, but still explain that they would never be more than friends. But he hadn't come. As she ate her lunch at the table, she smiled wryly at the trees tossing their leaves in the rain outside, realizing that the commander must have taken it upon himself to put an end to Paul's visits. And although she might have taken offense at this example of highhandedness on his part, instead she found it hard not to chuckle.

She had to admire his efficiency.

Nonetheless, she found that he could still surprise her. The colonel he sent to take his place in the investigation was a woman.

"I'm Col. Lake," she said briskly as she entered the room and set her briefcase onto the table. "I'll be handling your case from now on."

"Okay," Trisha said, trying not to be intimidated. Col. Lake was quite a beautiful woman, stylishly put together, and somehow she couldn't help but feel frumpy in her presence.

"I have some questions for you to answer," the colonel said and took out the large sheaf of papers that Trisha had seen the day before and sat down with them at the table across from her. She clicked her pen and said, "What is your name?"

"Trisha Collier. Um . . . Patricia Marie Collier."

The colonel barely flicked her a glance before writing that down. "Rank?"

"Lieutenant. At least, that's what I was. What would I be considered now?"

"That's what we hope to ascertain," said the colonel firmly.

"Right."

"Serial number?"

Trisha surprised herself by rattling it off without thinking, then sat and blinked while the colonel wrote it down. Whoa! Where had that come from? Then she grinned. Maybe this wouldn't be so awful after all.

"Birthday?"

"Um – May, I think."

Col. Lake looked up from the questionnaire. "Date?"

Trisha shrugged. "I don't know. The thirteenth? Fourteenth? I'm not sure."

Virginia checked her sheet and saw that the lieutenant's birthday was May 14th. She made a note of it, then went on. "Year?"

"1945," said Trisha with relief. "The year the war ended."

That particular war, the colonel thought, but didn't say anything aloud. "Place of birth?"

The questions never seemed to end, taxing Trisha's memory to the hilt. She felt completely exhausted by the time the colonel finally put the papers away and left. Then she got up and went into her tiny bathroom. She stared at her reflection for a long time. Unlike the colonel, who was strikingly beautiful, Trisha couldn't help but think of herself as perfectly ordinary.

Except for the green tinge to her skin, which certainly no one would consider attractive. She didn't care how much the doctor said it would fade. It couldn't be gone fast enough to suit her. It made her look awful, she thought. Like some monstrous thing. Not even human.

She sighed and fussed with her hair. It was a nondescript brown and curled wildly, resembling nothing so much as an unruly mess. How nice it would have been to be a platinum blonde! And maybe if she had wide grey eyes instead of dark brown ones, she might be considered intriguing. At least, to some people.

She turned away from the mirror in disgust and went back into the room. How he could be interested in someone like her when he worked with a woman like Col. Lake was beyond her. Maybe she had imagined it all. Maybe she couldn't differentiate dream from reality anymore.

But when she touched her lips, the memory of his kiss came back in all its strength to remind her that he did feel something for her. It made no sense. Not really. Not when she had nothing special about her that might attract him. But it had happened.

She smiled to herself and watched the rain out the window. Maybe if she remembered enough, she could eventually be trusted to go back to work. He'd said she used to be brilliant. Maybe she could assist him instead of being a millstone around his neck. That was a nice thought, and since there was no one around to discourage her, she let herself dwell on the possibility for a while.

Trisha woke and swallowed the scream on her lips. The hospital, she thought in a gasp as she saw the white ceiling. She was in the hospital. Not in some alien ship being forcibly restrained by nasty guys in red spacesuits. And green faces.

She wanted to turn on the light and dispel some of the terror that lingered. But she knew once she could see the color of her hands, she would feel the nightmare all over again. Instead she laid shivering in the dark and tried to remind herself of the flower garden behind the hospital. There she'd been at peace, for perhaps the first time in years. Had she thanked the commander for showing it to her? She couldn't remember – and spent the next several minutes upset with herself for not telling him how much it had meant to her.

She tossed and turned for a couple hours before finally falling into an exhausted slumber. But she woke in the morning unrefreshed, feeling wrung out. And Col. Lake would be returning today with more questions.

Great. Just great.

Commander Straker had seemed disappointed with her report on the progress of the investigation. Virginia frowned as she pulled into the parking lot at the hospital and sat in her car for a minute before going in. He hadn't said anything, and indeed, what could he have said? She'd managed to get the lieutenant to answer nearly every question for the file. Which meant that her memory was coming back quickly, perhaps even triggered by the questions themselves. Surely that was good news? So why had he appeared dissatisfied with her results? What more did he expect her to do?

She climbed out of the car and locked it, then ventured into the hospital, still worrying about it. He couldn't have wanted her to engage the woman in conversation, could he? She'd been on the alien planet for years. Even her skin made her look like one of them. Surely he didn't expect the colonel to take the risk of befriending the girl when she was a danger to everyone she came into contact with?

She was still trying to figure out why the doctors were considering releasing her soon.

But when she came into the patient's room, her heart softened in spite of itself. Miss Collier didn't look like a danger to anyone. She looked like she had gone ten rounds with the champ – and lost.

"Hello, Patricia," she found herself saying. This better be what the commander wanted. "How are you feeling today?"

"Lousy."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said as she took out a new set of papers.

Trisha eyed them darkly, then said suddenly, "I see you have more questions for me, but can I ask you a question first?"

Virginia twirled the pen in her fingers, eying the woman cautiously. "Alright," she said finally.

"This!" Trisha said, throwing out her arms, palms upward. "How did I get this?"

She looked so distraught that the colonel felt pity for her. "It's from the oxygenated liquid used in the spacesuit you wore."

"Spacesuit," she echoed quietly, then closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she said, "Who did it to me?"

Col. Lake shrugged. "No one. We have to assume you did it yourself, since we didn't find anyone else but you aboard the ship when it crashed. It was likely a necessary part of traveling that far across space."

Trisha looked down at her clenched hands and tried to get them to loosen. "Bad-ass vicious enemies, alright," she murmured under her breath. She looked out the window at the blue sky. "Not a plane crash. A spaceship crash." She tried to picture it, but could only conjure remnants of her nightmare instead. She sighed. "How did I wreck it? Did something malfunction?"

"No."

When the colonel said nothing more, Trisha glanced at her. And what she saw on her face made her give a sharp laugh. "I get it. You shot me down. Enemy ship, after all. What else would you do?"

"We didn't know . . ."

Trisha lifted a hand. "I know. I know. It's alright." She looked back outside. "It's just ironic, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," Virginia conceded.

Suddenly the woman fixed her dark gaze on her. "Who ordered the hit?"

"I hardly think . . ."

Trisha slammed a hand down on the table. "Damn it! I need to know. Who ordered it? Commander Straker?"

"Listen, Patricia. He had no way of knowing who was aboard that ship. You can't blame him for doing his job."

"I don't," said Trisha sadly, lowering her head to her hands for a moment. "But I'll bet he does."

Col. Lake blinked at her, not sure she'd heard her right. The commander couldn't afford to second guess himself every time an alien ship tried to enter the atmosphere. He knew the risks they faced better than anyone. Certainly, he wouldn't hold himself to blame that this one time a human had been onboard?

"Commander Straker knows his job," Virginia said briskly.

Trisha nodded, turning back to the window. "I'm sure he does," she agreed with a sigh. After a moment she said, "So, what are your questions about today?"

**Chapter 11**

He stood at her bedside and watched her sleep. He knew he shouldn't be there; knew the risks he was taking by returning – and especially at such a late hour. But he couldn't bring himself to care very much about it.

Col. Lake's report had made him realize that Trisha was beginning to remember her captivity. It had to be absolutely terrifying to her, and he found it impossible to stay away when she might need someone to just be there to assure her that she was finally safe. He had hoped that Col. Lake would bond with her. Would be a friend to her. They were both brilliant women, after all, and surely had a great deal they could discuss? But it hadn't happened.

It bothered him that Trisha had asked who had ordered the attack on her ship. Surely she wouldn't hold it against him that it had been him? Surely she understood that he would have done anything to go back and change that order once he found out who that ship carried? He gazed at her beautiful face, trying to see into her mind.

Did she hate him now that she knew?

Her brow furrowed slightly and she turned in the bed, mumbling something incoherently before settling onto her side. His heart ached while he gazed at her, reminding him of all the times he had once held her in his arms while she slept. How arrogant he'd been in those days, confident that she would always be there – right where he needed her!

He'd once broken all the rules to have her. And paid an enormous price in heartbreak when he'd lost her. As she tossed her head restlessly on the pillow, he stepped closer to the bed, wondering if he'd survive the heartbreak that might result from breaking those rules again? But could he bear it if he didn't take the risk? Would he ever be able to forgive himself for not believing in their love enough to hope for a good outcome this time? He'd let her down before. Could he walk away and do so again?

Her eyes suddenly opened and met his in the dark. "Ed!" she murmured sleepily, reaching out one slender hand to touch his face. "Hold me. Don't let them get me."

He shrugged out of his jacket and slid into the bed, gathering her close and stroking her lustrous hair. She sighed with contentment and closed her eyes, her arms around him as her breathing grew even once more.

Trisha woke with his lips on hers. She moaned and held him closer, pushing aside his shirt to feel the warmth of his back against her hands. "Ed!" she breathed, lost in memories, her body answering his demands of its own accord. It wasn't until much later, when she heard the sounds of the guard changing shifts outside her door, that she bolted upright and stared at him. "Ed!"

He smiled sleepily at her. "Good morning."

That smile almost seduced her into not caring about anything but what they had just shared. Ruthlessly she shook her head to clear it. "Damn it, Ed! Don't you ever listen? How could you put yourself in danger like this?"

"You're beautiful when you're angry," he said, running a hand down her arm.

She slapped it away. "What if I'd killed you while you slept?" she demanded, too worried to let him distract her.

"I don't know why you insist on fretting about something that never even happened," he said.

"Are you seriously denying that my nightmare meant anything?" she asked incredulously.

He reached out a hand and caressed her cheek, looking her right in the eye. "I'm denying that it has the power to make you turn against me."

"Oh, Ed!"

"I love you, Trisha. I never stopped, you know. Even when I hated you, mostly it was because I still loved you anyway, no matter what. Do you have any idea what it's done for me to find you again? To know that you never left me? To know that you still love me?"

"You don't know that," she said mutinously, trying her best to fight everything he was making her feel.

He grinned. "Of course, I do. Why would you try so hard to protect me from you if you didn't love me? Why would you worry so much about my safety if you didn't care?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, unable to deny his logic. When she opened them again, she said quietly, "What if I kill you, Ed? Or force you to kill me in self-defense? What then?"

He gave a deep sigh and sat up, sliding out of the bed for a moment to retrieve his jacket from the chair he'd laid it on the night before. He took something from one of the pockets and came back to the bed, opening his hand to show it to her once he was beside her again.

She gasped, recoiling in fear. "No, Ed! No!"

He took her hand and put the dagger into it, closing her fingers around the hilt. "It's your dagger, Trisha. You know you recognize it."

She was trembling from head to toe, cowering away from what he was forcing her to hold in her hand. "Where –? Where did you get it?"

"You had it strapped to your thigh when we found you. This is what you used to kill me in the nightmare, isn't it, Trisha?"

She nodded, too upset to say it out loud.

"Then if you were ever going to kill me with it, now's a good time." He let go of her hand, and she thrust the knife from her, pushing it over the side of the bed in horror.

"Damn you, Ed! Damn you!" she sobbed, brushing her hands together fiercely to get the feel of the dagger off her skin.

He gathered her close and rocked her against his chest while she cried. When she eventually quieted, he kissed the top of her head and said, "I don't care what they tried to program you to do, Trisha. I know you, and you just wouldn't do it. You love me as much as I love you, and it's about time I believed that again. Past time, really."

"You're crazy, do you know that?" she said sadly. "And it's all for nothing. No one is ever going to let us be together, Ed. _Ever_."

"Let them try and stop us," he said firmly, kissing her.

"Ed!" she said in despair. "I'm green!"

He stroked a finger down her arm. "It's actually closer to a light olive. Very chic."

She giggled in spite of herself. "You're insane."

"I love you."

She sighed, giving up. "I love you too."

He grinned. "This is cause for a celebration. Hold that thought!" he said as he scrambled off the bed. She almost asked where he was going naked, but he merely locked the door from the inside and came back to the bed.

"Now, where were we?" he asked with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.

**Chapter 12**

When Straker left Trisha's room shortly after noon, he found Dr. Jackson in the hall with the guard. He ran a hand through his hair to smooth it, but the doctor's sharp eyes were not fooled.

"Jackson," he said as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

The doctor sighed heavily. "Commander Straker." He looked his superior up and down, lifted one insolent brow, and added, "My office, I think."

The commander followed him without argument, aware that this first round was going to be the toughest one of all.

Once in the office, Jackson sat behind his desk, folded his hands on his blotter, and gazed at his commander, waiting for an explanation. When Straker didn't answer or even sit down, the doctor said, "Care to explain yourself?"

"She needed me," Straker said, then added when the doctor looked skeptical, "I could tell from Col. Lake's report that Trisha was beginning to remember being in the aliens' hands. I've always known this would be the hardest part for her to handle, and I couldn't leave her to deal with it alone."

"I would have thought you'd have a stronger sense of self-preservation than that, Commander."

Straker paced to the window and back, shaking his head. "It's not like that. She would never hurt me."

"And you know this because . . . ?" Jackson prompted sarcastically.

"I tested it."

The doctor leapt to his feet in shock. "You did _what? _Without backup? Failsafes?"

Straker broke into his sputtering. "I didn't need them. I was fine. I was nearly sure of it before I even went in there."

"You had no right to place yourself in that kind of danger!" Jackson scolded sternly.

The commander pointed a finger at his own chest. "My life," he argued fiercely. "My risk."

While the psychiatrist fumed, Straker took a calming breath and continued quietly. "Trisha was nearly as furious with me as you are, Doctor. She couldn't believe that I was forcing the issue. But I had to be sure. I had to."

Jackson sighed and took his seat once more. "You take too many risks, Commander."

Straker's lips twitched. "You sound just like her."

The doctor tried again. "Surely you realize that she can never be part of your life?"

"She _is_ my life," the commander replied quietly. "I doubted her once, Jackson. Doubted our love. Thought she'd grown tired of me and left. I barely survived it. My entire life crashed down around me. And even when I tried to move on, start over, I ended up marrying someone I barely even knew on the rebound." He laughed harshly. "And then had the nerve to blame it all on Trisha when that blew up in my face!

"No. If there's anything I've learned from this, it's that we belong together."

"Your expectations are unrealistic, Commander. You've known how things stood from the beginning."

Straker ran a hand through his hair. "It doesn't have to be like that."

Jackson sighed. "I wondered how well you'd accept such a no-win situation. But I must admit, I didn't think it would be with denial."

"Yes! A no-win situation! That's what you saw – what Trisha saw. And even what I saw for a while. Have you ever heard of zugzwang, Doctor?"

"Naturally."

Straker nodded. "That's how Trisha described it. And frankly, how I felt about it. Her solution was to take me out of the picture, which is basically what your solution is as well. But that's not the right answer. I realized over the past few days away from her that everyone was seeing the circumstances from one side, wondering if she'd ever be able to be trusted. Even she saw it that way! But that's not really how it was. The problem was with me! Could _I_ trust her? And more than that, since I'd been given the miracle of her back in my life, could I trust our love this time? Trust it enough to take a chance on her when no one else was willing to do that?

"In the end, it wasn't zugzwang at all. It was a matter of faith."

The doctor was silent for several minutes, thinking. Then he shook his head and sighed. "Commander, I understand your feelings. But I see no practical way to integrate her into your life without causing a major uproar in SHADO. She was on the alien planet for far too long. She will not be trusted by the majority of your staff, and if you push the issue and keep her in your life, you won't be trusted either."

"What no one seems to be considering is that she was on their planet. But she wasn't one of them! She can help us – help SHADO – by telling us what she knows about them. Their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities. With her help, we might finally gain the edge we need to win this war!"

Jackson looked intrigued for a moment. "Has she remembered anything of strategic importance?"

"Not yet. But it'll come back quickly now that she feels safe. I know it will."

"But if you bring her into SHADO before she gives us anything that makes a difference, you'll divide your staff, forcing a conflict within the organization that it may not recover from. And even those who see your viewpoint will find it difficult to side with you, because you will be in violation of military protocol by being involved with a junior officer."

Straker grinned. "Which is why she isn't coming into SHADO until after we're married."

The doctor closed his eyes for a moment. "Married? Commander, I hardly think . . ."

"It's alright, Jackson," the commander said, waving a hand dismissively. "I haven't even asked her yet."

"How do you think she'll respond?" the psychiatrist asked curiously.

Straker grimaced. "She'll probably argue with me like you have, Jackson. It'll take some time to convince her I'm right, but I don't mind the wait. It'll give her a chance to get rid of her biggest objection to the idea."

"Which is?"

The commander chuckled. "I know quite well that she won't marry me as long as she's still green."

Jackson was unable to keep the grin off his face. In fact, after a moment he even gave a short laugh. "Very well, Commander. I see that you've thought of everything. But what about security?"

"It's not an issue." When the doctor looked unconvinced, Straker said, "Come on, Jackson! You saw her record. She was involved with SHADO before it was even founded. Our unit in Intelligence dealt with UFO cases, after all. None of this could hardly be news to her. And she definitely has the clearance, if they want to get snippy about it."

The doctor stared at him for a long moment, then scribbled something on a slip of paper and handed it to him.

"What's this?" Straker asked, trying to read the mangled cursive.

Jackson sat back with a smirk. "If Miss Collier will soak in that solution daily, her skin will quickly return to its normal color."

The commander grinned. "Thank you, Doctor."

When he woke several weeks later and found himself alone in his bed, he grabbed his robe and went looking for her. As he expected, she was outside on the patio watching the dawn break over the treetops. She turned when he came out, giving him a rueful smile.

"Does it ever bother you, always being right?"

He grinned at her, taking her into his arms for a kiss. "What was I right about this time? The flowers?"

"No. Well, yes. You were definitely right about the flowers. They were just what the yard needed."

"I think so too." He went to kiss her again, but she held him off. He had a way of clouding her brain so that she couldn't concentrate. And she had to tell him what she'd remembered. She left his arms and picked up something from a deck chair. Turning, she showed him what it was.

In the early morning light, the dagger's blade shone razor sharp. "You were right about this," she said.

He knew she'd avoided the dagger as if it were something evil, so he was intrigued to see her holding it. "You've remembered that it was yours," he guessed.

Trisha shook her head. "No. I already knew that. But I finally remembered why I killed you with it."

"Really?" She didn't look upset, so he was curious. "Why did you?"

She sighed, absently flipping the dagger end on end in her hand as she spoke of this final piece of her lost memory. "Remember when I told you how I often raided their outpost for food?"

"Yes."

"Well, sometimes I would hear them talking and knew something was going down. Usually, I could manage to sabotage whatever scheme they were concocting and get out before anyone knew I'd been there." She paused for a moment, thinking about it. Then she said, "It's amazing what bad luck they had at that fortress."

He chuckled. "I can imagine," he said, trying not to think too much about the risks she had taken. She had survived, after all.

"Anyway, this one time I heard something that sent me down a hall I hadn't been down before. I didn't know what I'd find, but I certainly didn't expect to see you coming out of one of the rooms."

Straker was startled. "Me?"

She nodded and said sarcastically, "Imagine my surprise. Anyway, I knew almost immediately that it wasn't you. But he really looked like you. And I knew that somehow you'd gotten yourself in a position where they were planning to replace you with one of them. Well, you know the rest. I had to stop him. But I found it really hard to fight him. Not because he was strong, although he was. But because he looked so much like you."

Trisha met his eyes, tears shimmering in hers as she brought it back.

"I understand," he said softly.

"So I – I killed him," she said in a rush, as if needing to get past that part quickly. "Then as I was looking down at him, I realized that it wouldn't end there. They'd just try again. I had to warn you. I had to go back to Earth and let you know what they were planning. I had to keep you safe."

"Thank you for risking the journey."

She grimaced. "Mostly, I just wanted the chance to yell at you and ask what the hell kind of trouble you'd gotten yourself into?"

He took her back into his arms and kissed her. "Well, now you know."

"Yeah, and it's even worse than I was expecting. Really, Ed. Did you have to go and be in charge of the whole damn thing?"

"I didn't ask for it, Trisha," he said in his defense.

She sighed. "You never do." Her arms came around him, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Darling?" he asked after a moment. "Why didn't you come back sooner?"

She grimaced. "Well, Ed. Knowing how to fly a plane and knowing how to fly a spaceship are two very different things. You should know that. You're an astronaut. I was terrified. I had no idea if I could manage to steal one of those things, let alone fly it all the way back to Earth. I didn't exactly have a map, you know. The one good thing I could say about living on that planet was that at least I was alive. I wasn't so sure of my chances if I took to the stars."

"You wouldn't risk it for yourself, but you risked it for me," he said quietly, running a hand through her curls.

"I love you."

He kissed the top of her head. "Well, now that you know you're not programmed to kill me, will you finally marry me?"

She lifted her head and brought the hand holding the dagger around to look at it. Then she grinned, threw the knife over her shoulder in a move so smooth it had to be practiced, and said, "Yes, Ed. Yes, I'll marry you."

"It's about time," he murmured, holding her close. But his eyes widened when he saw that the dagger had struck the bole of a tree some thirty meters away, plunging deep into the bark almost to the hilt. He swallowed, realizing that his new wife would without a doubt always keep him on his toes.


End file.
